Mike Totten

Mike Totten served in Iraq as a military policeman. “Pre-deployment,” he says, “the cultural competency training that we received can be best summed up in a sentence: ‘Don’t touch the people of Iraq’s left hand. They wipe their ass with it.’” Totten says his company of MPs was very well run, with “phenomenal leadership.” But he testifies to cruel abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Iraqi police and by Bulgarian, Polish, and American soldiers—in one case by Totten himself.